July 16, 2010

Love. Wherever I turn to, it is somehow a discussion on love. There is nothing unusual about that. What makes me write is the specific concern about love that keeps coming back. Does it last?

The first one was when a colleague wrote about arranged and love marriages. Another said love – the feeling is consistent – but it needn’t be towards the same person. Convenient! It kept bringing back that thought which I fear – that no love is consistent. And no I don’t mean this version of feeling-lasts-but-lover-does-not.

So all that crush stuff we talk about is an ‘unconscious’ feeling of lust? Yech! I’m not going to accept that. Crush is crush – you like something about the person, which attracts you to him, but you have no idea what it is on introspection. And that’s what makes it special. How can love be love if there is logic in it? No way.

Love should be mysterious, incomprehensible, unpredictable and totally devoid of logic. For example, you cant decide – person X has so many qualities matching to mine, I will pick him. That may work for arranged marriages. But not in love. But then again, it might be one of these qualities which worked the magic, you never know. I say the whole concept of love crumbles if you bring your calculations into it. In other words, brain has no place in it. Which is why I wont buy the piece in The Hindu.

But one part they say is about long-time friends becoming a couple at some point in life. Now this has been an area I keep debating with self and never can find an answer to. Friendship, I have always held as a divine and platonic relationship and I cant imagine anything coming in between to shatter that. Not even love. I have always seen friendship above love though I hear people say it is one and the same. I will say this much. To lovers, friendship is an added advantage. But to friends, love is an intruder who will forever change something divine that they had all this while.

Today I just read Doctors and it is again the same theory. I don’t want to carry any spoilers in case someone wants to read it – the book is lovely and I would wish I had a Barney in my life like that.

Two things bother me. The consistency factor and the friendship factor. However much I believe that marriage could put an end to all your “intense” feelings making it a matter-of-fact relationship taken for granted, I still like to fantasize that there exists true love. That someone is there for someone else – forever, not changing faces in between. Just one for another. Now it would be really sad if there is no such thing.

July 10, 2010

It is amazing how music can change the whole atmosphere around you. Not only yours, but others around you.

I am at this crowded bus stop, all the rush and hush of the city at its peak. The buses, the cars and bikes, the people – it is total chaos. Ping, comes the music player. Pong, plays the song. And then you look at the same crowded place, the same people and vehicles. And you get a totally different feeling.

I get into a bus and even as I am being crammed by a dozen others sharing my same spot, it is really great. Not the cramming, no. The music effect. I look at people I pass, through the windows. And they all seem to make movements to match my song. Like in the movies where you have these songs in the background to bring the effect. It works in real life too, if you have a set of ear phones with you all the time.

A man rushes after the bus, another just stays still outside a shop, a third glances at his watch, a fourth signs a paper. A lady seems to scold someone, another just stands at a bus stop. A boy picks out his mobile phone. Two old men walk, talking. The tired expressions, the bored ones, the impassive ones, the cheerful ones – they were all perfectly fitting into the rhythm of my song.

Pause. The song is over. The real world noises are back for a few seconds. Pong, the next song begins. This time, a love song. Wow. Cool. I now choose my actors. I see someone on the road, and then look at the next person of the opposite gender and imagine they are “the lovers”. A man becomes the hero of two women, a middle-aged dame for a twenty-something fellow. There is a girl rushing towards my bus. A guy far away is parking his bike, I imagine, looking after the girl who (might have) just ran out from the shop. He has a secret crush on her. He goes back, she is inside the bus. Maybe she looks back, I can’t see her.

But there is a problem when you play love songs. Pretty soon you forget about all your real life actors from the streets and buses. You end up imagining scenes with a single person taking the lead role. No doubt, it is yourself. You picture your every movement is now on screen being admired by your one-and-only – that slow smile, that gleam in the eyes, that slight swaying of the hair – that sudden brake in the bus and the sudden fall!

It is absolutely lovely. Adding background music to real world. It is amazing, really. And you wouldn’t even need an MP3 player if you are imaginative enough. You could play it in your mind. Although, I must warn you, it could land you in trouble – cause you end up acting to your song and the onlookers who cant hear the music, may – just may – raise a brow or two. But chances are, if they have known you too long, they will know not to find it unusual to find an overly-expressive woman being overly-expressive for no reason at all.